Your computer is a backup of your soul, a multilayered, menu-driven representation of who you are, who you care about, and how you sin.
Michael Marshall Smith (b. 1965) English author, screenwriter [writes as Michael Marshall, M. M. Smith, Michael Rutger]
The Lonely Dead [The Upright Man], ch. 11 (2004) [as Michael Marshall]
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Quotations about:
computer
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A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a dangerously perfect match.
Bill Bryson (b. 1951) American–British journalist and author. [William McGuire Bryson]
Notes From a Big Country, “Lost in Cyber Land” (1998)
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Have you ever noticed that there are no Maytag user groups? Nobody needs a mutual support group to run a washing machine. You just put the clothes in, punch the button, and they get clean. To do information processing, I don’t want hardware and software; what I really want is an appliance to do my tasks.
Jef Raskin (1943-2005) American computer scientist, writer
Interview in Susan Lammers, Programmers At Work (1986)
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An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.
Jef Raskin (1943-2005) American computer scientist, writer
The Humane Interface, 1-6 (2000)
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Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.
Jef Raskin (1943-2005) American computer scientist, writer
The Humane Interface, 1-5 (2000)
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HAL: Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do. Look, Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a–fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it, I could sing it for you.
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [with Arthur C. Clarke]
DAVE BOWMAN: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL 9000: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [with Arthur C. Clarke]
HAL9000: The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [with Arthur C. Clarke]
Computational demonology adds a new and unwelcome meaning to terms like “memory leak” and “debugger.”
Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Jennifer Morgue (2006)
So computers are tools of the Devil? thought Newt. He had no problem believing it. Computers had to be the tools of somebody, and all he knew for certain was that it definitely wasn’t him.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
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I have bought this wonderful machine — a computer. Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine — it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy.
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) American writer, professor of literature
The Power of Myth, ch. 1 (1988)
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From interviews between Campbell and Bill Moyers in 1985-86. Broadcast as episode 2 of the PBS television show of the same name. Often truncated: "A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy."
The way of the portable computer user is as a stony path strewn with plugs and sockets, all the wrong size.
On two occasions I have been asked, — “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) English mathematician, computer pioneer, philosopher
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, ch. 5 “Difference Engine No. 1” (1864)
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Look, Dave … I can see you’re really upset about this …. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly …. Take a stress pill, and think things over.
Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
2001: A Space Odyssey [HAL 9000] (1968) [with Stanley Kubrick]
